Spotlight On...

Sarah KalvinArtist and Ventura Advocate

When
Sarah Kalvin settled in Ventura in 2001, Venturans not only gained a
talented new neighbor, but a community advocate. When you first meet
Sarah, you know you’re in the presence of an artist. Her soft smile,
open-minded eyes, and long hair that falls loosely down her back tells
you so. When you get to know her art albeit oil, watercolor, acrylic,
photography or digital, you’ll see that she is an artist with a strong
sense of kinship to the community she calls home.

Her website bio notes that “Sarah takes pride in versatility
and understatement of self-expression and attempts to infuse this into
her art by capturing her subject's subtle spirit and serenity.” You’ll
see this in many of her Ventura landscape oil and water-color
collections. But to find out more about Sarah’s artistic career and her
work with community projects, Fun-in-Ventura sat down to ask her a few
questions:

Your
artistic accomplishments are very
multi-dimensional and include garment design. In fact, you once owned
and operated the very popular Ix Chel Fashions in Santa Monica. Can you
tell us a little more about the Ix Chel (pronounced e-shell) project
that inspired your business and why it was important to you?

SK
- I was originally invited to Mexico by a friend I met
while living in Berkeley, California. We traveled to the State
of
Chiapas in southern Mexico. Chiapas is the center of Mayan
culture, and
many people go there to
study the indigenous population that
still
lives today much as they did centuries ago. I was in awe of the people
of Chiapas and the jungle. Ever since I was a child, I
wanted to be
surrounded by foliage.

I remember seeing Mayan women walking down the street,
barefoot like they were drawn to the earth, and wearing hand-woven
clothing. They created their clothing with a back-strap loom. A loom
that was strapped to their back, then tied to a tree while
they sat
down on the ground to weave. I was fascinated with their lifestyle and
its similarity to the Native American culture I was attracted to in the
1960's.

Later I returned and lived in Mexico for 3-1/2 years. I wanted
to help the Mayan women preserve their lifestyle and the art of the
back-strap loom, and I knew that the best way to do that would be to
help them sell hand woven fabric. I didn’t want them to lose what the
Native American’s lost. I created a workshop and we made modern
garments to sell in the local shops. I called the project Ix Chel
after
the Maya Moon Goddess of weaving, healing and childbirth.

After
the Northridge Earthquake disrupted your
business you moved to San Antonio and taught pattern making for surface
design at the Southwest School of Art. Some of your designs from that
period were even featured in Jane Dunnewold’s book “Complex Cloth”. You
then set off for Austria. What prompted your move to Vienna?

SK
-
After the earthquake, I put my finger on the map to find
the U.S. city closest to Coahuila, Mexico where my friends lived. That
turned out to be San Antonio, Texas. I was there for six months when my
friend Renee Karger, an Austrian designer who worked with me
as a
seamstress in Chiapas, invited me to join her in Austria. I had never
been to Europe.

Renee knew the famousAustrian silk screen artist, Vesna, who
was famous for modernizing Gustav Klimt’s art work and putting it into
her fabric designs. Klimt is probably best known for his painting “The
Kiss” and is very important to Austrians. Vesna took elements of his
work and made them popular again. She had a large collection of silk
screens that Renee and I recycled into contemporary clothing to sell,
which revitalized her style and her art.

In
Vienna you were invited to lecture for the
Esoteric Society at the United Nations on various subjects including
that
of Individual Destiny. You’ve been dedicated to meditation
and metaphysical studies for many years now. How has this discipline
influenced the art you create?

SK –
Since I started painting in 1998 while staying with an artist
friend in New York, I’ve
tried to focus
on and capture the spirit of the place or subject I paint.
This relates
my work to my metaphysical interests.

After painting in oils, I wanted to get looser and started
painting watercolor abstracts. When I was learning graphic design, my
instructor showed me how to use digital
brush strokes
to paint Sumi-e
which means “ink painting”
in Japanese. I had once taken a class to
learn this brush stroke, so I was surprised to see it as a digital
tool.

From that, I created my “Yoga Prose” series. These are 12
depictions of yoga postures that I did using a mouse, which is more
difficult than using a stylus. I created all 12 in one-half hour. Of
course, it took much longer after that to add the prose and the color
behind the digital images. At first I tried to hide the fact that the
artwork was digital, but then realized it was to my benefit to reveal
the technique, because digital art had become popular.

When
you returned to the States from Vienna why
did you choose to settle in Ventura?

SK
-
It was 2001 and I had been traveling a lot and wanted to
settle down. I wanted to live in Ventura for some time, as it reminded
me of Santa Monica where I grew up. In fact, my first painting was of
“Surfer’s Knoll.” You can find it in my “Spirit of
Ventura” series.
I’ve had people who’ve lived and moved away from Ventura tell me that
when they looked at that picture it felt as if they were really
there.

You
certainly capture Ventura’s natural beauty.
But you also use artistic expression to advocate community
conservation. Your work with Ventura’s "Fading Treasures" and
involvement
with the E.P. Foster home renovation are examples of this. Why are
these important projects for you and the community?

SK
-
Fading
Treasures is about the loss of Ventura’s history,
the loss of its unique character. I remember walking past the Mayfair
Theatre and thinking, “wow, what was it like then in its heyday. What
is the history of this place?” It spoke to me.

I
feel the same about Hobo Jungle at the mouth of the Ventura
River. It’s like a sanctuary to me with all the trees. It is so exotic.
I was first drawn to it because it gave me the feeling of being in
another world. I wanted to know more about how the trees got there. I
recognized them as Monterey Cypress which are not natural to this area
and I wondered, “who planted these?”So I started doing a lot of
research. I went to the museum and the library and no one had any idea.
Finally, I found my answer. The trees were planted under E.P. Foster’s
direction. He owned, and later donated, Seaside Park to the County.
Hobo Jungle had been part of Seaside Park.

The trees he planted in the area of the park now used for the
County Fair were bulldozed for a parking lot. I didn’t know it at the
time, but the trees became Ventura’s first fading treasure.I began to
wonder more about E.P. Foster: “What
kind of man was he to plant trees
like this?” I could sense his energy, his spirit. I
started to wonder
about his family members and little by little people gave me
connections to them. Today, because of my
efforts, E.P. Foster’s
great-grandchildren, Millie
Schofield and Phil Foster Ranger, are hoping to see the restoration of
their ancestor’s home that currently stands deteriorating on upper
Ventura Avenue.

In Ventura’s Fading Treasures, you can see that the materials
used for construction were superior to now. There was more care and
time taken in the architectural design. A building was like a piece of
art. Looking at these
fading treasures is like looking at a family
album. There
are family connections to these businesses and homes.
Ventura’s gems should be
restored like collector’s items so that
Ventura does not become a town without a soul - without history.

Recently,
you moved into Ventura’s new community
WAV, Working Artists Ventura, and are actively involved in promoting it
and the other artists sharing residency there. Tell us more about what
the WAV means for Ventura’s art scene?

SK
-
The WAV is like an experiment with this new concept where
you have every kind of artist living and working in one place.
It’s
exciting and has great potential. When
you visit the WAV,instead
of
viewing artists as you would fish in an aquarium, you are swimming
along side them. You are immersed in their world. It gives
a person a
unique view of what it’s like being an artist, because you can see
where the artists work and live and what inspires them. There is a
special electric energy at the WAV.

What’s in store for Sarah Kalvin in 2010?

SK
-
I need to have my art start to make a living for me and
so I’m seeking to sell my collection of Ventura paintings in its
entirety. I also plan to create more regularly scheduled workshops for
children and seniors. In working with children, I’d like to teach them
about the environmental problems which are endangering the natural
floral and fauna at the mouth of the Ventura River. The workshops would
also be a way to teach them things like sharing. For example, when they
create their art, they keep one piece and give one to be used to sell
and generate revenue to continue to fund the workshops. Finally, I plan
to continue to be a part of the Ventura artist community, to help
represent and develop Ventura’s image as an art city.